To Locate Our Leadership Direction We Need to Dig Deep

This past week I needed to replace my old gas lines with new pipes to connect with an updated system. Although going through the process was a bit uncomfortable, there really was no choice if I no longer wanted water in my gas line. To make this happen, the gas company had to dig deep to locate my current hook-ups and re-trench my property with the new pipes. Holding off was just a temporary solution and a poor choice at that. I had to embrace this total property upheaval if I no longer wanted to lose heat or hot water.

In the same way, we all have busy careers that don’t afford us a lot of time to come up for air and dig deep to discover what kind of leaders we want to be. Even if we don’t want to feel uncomfortable or stressed, we know that we need to constantly grow to be influential leaders. We can delay our thinking about our leadership direction temporarily until we run amuck and realize that we no longer can just swim around in our old thinking and patterns.

To locate our leadership direction we need to dig deep.

Today is the day to dig deep to realign your leadership pipeline.

WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?

Before the gas company could upgrade my gas lines, they needed to evaluate what was taking place in my current situation. They needed to fully assess where all the pipes were located and what was causing the water in the line. Similarly, leaders need to make a full evaluation on how their leadership is going today.

IS THERE ANY NEED FOR A CHANGE AND WHY?

When we conduct an assessment we realize what is going well and what still needs to be tweaked. Additionally, we need to dig deep and identify specifically what isn’t working and why we aren’t feeling successful. For example, if we sense that we aren’t being heard when we speak up in meetings, we need to look at what is causing the disconnection. Sometimes asking a colleague, co-worker or boss can be insightful for us.

WHAT SEEMS FASCINATING OR NECESSARY?

Have you been reading about some intriguing new strategies or ideas that you would want to incorporate into your leadership? Have you received feedback about an area you may want to explore or improve? These kinds of questions can often guide where you want to focus your explorations. Look at areas to strengthen your skills and well as topics that motivate you. Both can provide a wonderful balance in growing forward.

To locate your leadership direction find areas to grow skills as well as your mind.

WHAT ARE THE FIRST STEPS?

Create a plan by writing down what you specifically need to change or learn about to follow this new leadership direction.

List all the changes that seem important or essential

Choose one or two areas to work on and write out the actions you want to take

Give timeframes and ways you will measure success

Choose an accountability partner to help you stay on track

IS THERE A NEED TO GET HELP FROM OTHERS AND WHO?

This is where we need to be brave and assertive. We need to think of who can help us reach our next milestones. We need to dig deep. If we want to learn some new skills or have exposure to a different department in our organization, we need to think of who can set up connections for us. Is there someone who already has the knowledge that we can shadow?

HOW WILL I MEASURE THIS NEW LEADERSHIP DIRECTION?

Finally establish ways to measure your success. How will you know when you are on the right path to your chosen leadership direction? Decide on what your leadership will look like and feel like. Then you will know for sure when you are there.

Rosie the Robot, Amazon, and the Future of RAAI

It’s tough to find a kid out there who hasn’t dreamed about robots. Long before artificial intelligence existed in the real world, the idea of a non-human entity that could act and think like a human has been rooted in our imaginations. According to Greek legends, Cadmus turned dragon teeth into soldiers, Hephaestus fabricated tables that could “walk” on their own three legs, and Talos, perhaps the original “Tin Man,” defended Crete. Of course, in our own times, modern storytellers have added hundreds of new examples to the mix. Many of us grew up watching Rosie the Robot on The Jetsons. As we got older, the stories got more sophisticated. “Hal” in 2001: A Space Odyssey was soon followed by R2-D2 and C-3PO in the original Star Wars trilogy. RoboCop, Interstellar, and Ex Machina are just a few of the recent additions to the list.

Maybe it’s because these stories are such a part of our culture that few people realize just how far robotics has advanced today—and that artificial intelligence is anything but a futuristic fantasy. Ask anyone outside the industry how modern-day robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are used in the real world, and the answers are usually pretty generic. Surgical robots. Self-driving cars. Amazon’s Alexa. What remains a mystery to most is the immense and fast-growing role the combination of robotics automation and artificial intelligence, or RAAI (pronounced “ray”), plays in nearly every aspect of our everyday lives.

Today, shopping online is something most of us take for granted, and yet eCommerce is still in its relative infancy. Despite double-digit growth in the past four years, only 8% of total retail spending is currently done online. That number is growing every day. Business headlines in July announced that Amazon was on a hiring spree to add another 50K fulfillment employees to its already massive workforce. While that certainly reflects the shift from brick-and-mortar to web-based retail, it doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what this growth means for the technology and application firms that deliver the RAAI tools required to support the momentum of eCommerce. In 2017, only 5% of the warehouses that fuel eCommerce are even partially automated. This means that to keep up with demand, the application of RAAI will have to accelerate—and fast. In fact, RAAI is a key driver of success for top e-retailers like Amazon,Apple, and Wal-Mart as they strive to meet the explosion in online sales.

From an investor’s perspective, this fast-growing demand for robotics, automation and artificial intelligence is a promising opportunity—especially in logistics automation that includes the tools and technologies that drive efficiencies across complex retail supply chains. Considering the fact that four of the top ten supply chain automation players were acquired in the past three years, it’s clear that the industry is transforming rapidly. Amazon’s introduction of Prime delivery (which itself requires incredibly sophisticated logistics operations) was only made possible by its 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems, the pioneer of autonomous mobile robots for warehouses and supply chains. Amazon recently upped the ante yet again with its recent acquisition of Whole Foods Market, which not only adds 450 warehouses to its immense logistics network, but is also expected to be a game-changer for the online grocery retail industry.

Clearly Amazon isn’t the only major driver of innovation in logistics automation. It’s just the largest, at least for the moment. It’s no wonder that many RAAI companies have outperformed the S&P500 in the past three years. And while some investors have worried that the RAAI movement is at risk of creating its own tech bubble, the growth of eCommerce is showing no signs of reaching a peak. In fact, if the online retail industry comes even close to achieving the growth predicted—of doubling to an amazing $4trillion by 2020—it’s likely that logistics automation is still in the early stages of adoption. For best-of-breed players in every area of logistics automation, from equipment, software, and services to supply chain automation technology providers, the potential for growth is tremendous.

How can investors take advantage of the growth in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence?

One simple way to track the performance of these markets is through the ROBO Global Robotics & Automation Index. The logistics subsector currently accounts for around 9% of the index and is the best performing subsector since its inception. The index includes leading players in every area of RAAI, including material handling systems, automated storage and retrieval systems, enterprise asset intelligence, and supply chain management software across a wide range of geographies and market capitalizations. Our index is research based and we apply quality filters to identify the best high growth companies that enable this infrastructure and technology that is driving the revolution in the retail and distribution world.

When I was a kid, I may have dreamed of having a Rosie the Robot of my own to help do my chores, but I certainly had no idea how her 21st century successors would revolutionize how we shop, where we shop, and even how we receive what we buy - often via delivery to our doorstep on the very same day. Of course, the use of RAAI is by no means limited to eCommerce. It’s driving transformative change in nearly every industry. But when it comes to enabling the logistics automation required to support a level of growth rarely seen in any industry, RAAI has a lot of legs to stand on—even if those “legs” are anything but human.

The ROBO Global® Robotics and Automation Index and the ROBO Global® Robotics and Automation UCITS Index (the “Indices”) are the property of ROBO who have contracted with Solactive AG to calculate and maintain the Indices. Past performance of an index is not a guarantee of future results. It is not intended that anything stated above should be construed as an offer or invitation to buy or sell any investment in any Investment Fund or other investment vehicle referred to in this website, or for potential investors to engage in any investment activity.